Illustrations for new horror stories from Morten Dürr - designing Azull

The horror book "The vampire in 7.A - and other black shock" will be published by Carlsen shortly before Bogforum (November 7 to 9). 

The book contains a series of short stories, and one of these is about the monster Azull who avenged themselves violently on a number of children who either did not believe him, or thought they could get away with bagataliserer his ability.

Azull can crawl through the ground and jump up, he has long claws and furry coat ..... the rest is my interpretation. Oh well .... so he tears to her eyes out on little boys and eat them .... or just to tear the arms of those tongue out and head of the little sister.

Warning: meat eaters

I did these caged dragon babies for a for a picture book with children book illustrator from the danish writers association.
I was given a pretty abstract text about two in an egg, that are looking out at the world for the first time trying to figure out what they are and what the wanna be. They can see some green and yellow stuff laying on the ground and some long dark lines that goes all the way up and all the way down...hmm..well I had free hands to interpret the text in my illustrations...so I decided for dragons instead birds.
As far as I have been told, we were three illustrators who have been interpreting this text...Im curious to see what the other two have come up with.
Anyway I had a lot of fun drawing this.
The book will be out in the fall.

A clumsy candy thief

This image is for a childrensbook with 12 stories with the theme 'light'. The book is a a result of 12 collaborations between danish authors and nepali illustrators and the other way around: danish illustrators and nepali authors. The book is published by the danish authors union.

for a book that will be published in Nepal

This has been an interesting process. First I did a fullpage illustration over the theme "Light". My illustration/interpretation of the theme, were then emailed to an author Nepal. Then he would come up with a story that suited the image, then I recieved his story and refine my illustration and did two vignettes.
The story and illustrations will be printed in a book together with 11 other Nepal-Denmark collaborations between author and illustrator.

illustration in progress

I was selected to do a one page illustration for a childrenbook, over the theme "light" by the danish authors union (dansk forfatterforening). My illustration/interpretation of the theme, would be end to an author Nepal, that would come up with a story that suited the image, then I would recieve his story and refine my illustration and do two vignettes. I just recieved the story the other day, so I havent completed my illustration yet, or done the two vignettes yet. As soon as I have everything done, I'll post it with the story (1077 words)
The story and illustrations will be printed in a book together with 11 other Nepal-Denmark collaborations between author and illustrator.

kidspages for the christmas issue

These are the last set of kidspages for Samvirke magazine I will be doing. From 2009 the magazine have decided to not to bring pages for kids anymore. So my christmas issue will be the last appearance for the donkey and his friend, the pig.
Over the last three years I have illustrated and layouted 65 spreads = 130 pages.
I has been fun to work with the kidspages, but everything has an end and I feel ready to try something new.
I hope the readers have enjoyed my effort since january 2006.
Below this post I have posted 5 spreads from each of the three years. To see more, go to my webpage

Thanks for reading

Erik

My first kidspages, January 2006

In September 2005 I was contacted by Samvirke magazine. They asked me I would be interested in doing two spreads for them each month, both the illustrations and the layout in Indesign. I was thrilled and said yes, but didn't know Indesing by that time. I imagined that I would learn it quickly, and by the help from some colleagues at Kathart I was able to get a hang of it.

The first set of spreads were printed in the magazine january 2006.

In the beginning I did the illustrations before I did the layout. This was a time consuming and problematic way of working, and the spread layouts looked scattered. After a while I realized that the pages would look and work better, if I did one big splash-illustration that covered all the different topics from the small text boxes, instead of one image for each text.
Over the three years I have done the children pages, I have learned about layout and how to find images that suits my layouts...or layouts that suits my obsession to do over complicated and detailed illustrations (it has a name horror vacui)

I am grateful that Samvirke gave me the opportunity to work on this project.

Kidspages 2006

Kidspages 2007

kidspages 2008

From the month of May the format changed. Instead of two spreads containing an interview with kids on a given topic, photos of them and a crossword puzzle as elements each issue. The target group was adjusted from kids around 8 to 10 years old, to preschool kids. One spread with a story and an instruction to the reader (the parent) on how to built something with the kid.

IF: Packed ...... with leaves.

make your own olympic games

building a sandcastle

making a miniature garden

The the kids pages theme for june is: the garden.
Donkey and his friend the pig is trying to figure out how to make a garden. The pig is pretty sure it's all about digging deep enough. So they both dig like maniacs and end up with a big hole in the ground, when donkeys mom all of a sudden discovers what is going on and make them stop.
There is an instruction to how you can make your own miniature garden in three easy steps.
The spread is intended for kids 3-5 years old.

the new kidpages

The first edition of, the new version of the spread for kids in Samvirke, "Æseløret" is about insects.
Here is the spread with and without type. And some of the bugs I sketched in my sketchbook.
It's so nice to sketch on toned paper, the colors become more vibrant and with a Posca-marker it's easy to "cut out" the character from the background.